Types of Container Plans

This document focuses on IaaS Plans. Note that IaaS Plans can also be used directly by tenants for their workloads as IaaS service. The SP Admin can also use IaaS Plan subscriptions to build hosted applications for tenants.

Configuring Specific Services

Each tenant service will need additional per-tenant configuration to onboard the tenant. The services that are supported by the CCA MCP architecture include Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) with Zinc Container, Database as a Service (DBaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), and Backup as a Service (BaaS).

Each tenant gets a logical container of resources and the cloud container patterns provide a view of this logical network. Container models can be built in a variety of ways to support the use cases. A set of reference IaaS patterns have been built that are available “out of the box” for ready deployment. Orchestration of these containers is accomplished by using Cisco CNAP to provision the Cisco networking pieces for tenant services.

Cisco Cloud Architecture for the Microsoft Cloud Platform: DBaaS Configuration Guide, Release 1.0 —Describes how Data Base as a Service can be deployed over the CCA MCP architecture.

Cisco Cloud Architecture for the Microsoft Cloud Platform: DRaaS Application Note, Release 1.0 —Describes how Disaster Recovery as a Service (based on Microsoft Azure Site Recovery) can be deployed over the CCA MCP architecture.

Cisco Cloud Architecture for the Microsoft Cloud Platform: Backup as a Service Implementation Guide, Release 1.0 —Describes how Backup as a Service (powered by Commvault Simpana) can be deployed over the CCA MCP architecture.

Creating Container Plans

Using the container plan creation wizard to create a network and virtual machine cloud container plan, including details about:

– WAN gateway

– Tenant perimeter firewall

– Server load balancer (SLB)

Once a container plan is created, customers can use the Tenant Portal to subscribe to any of the available public container plans. For more information, see Cisco Cloud Network Automation Provisioner for the Microsoft Cloud Platform—Tenant Portal Guide, Release 1.1.

Creating a Network and Virtual Machine Cloud Container Plan

To create a network and virtual machine cloud container plan:

Step 1 On the Tenants Tab screen, click + New in the lower left corner, as shown in the following screen. You can also click PLANS on the main WAP screen.

Figure 4-1 Tenants Tab Screen

You see a pop-up window with various options for what you can create, as shown in the following screen.

Figure 4-2 Creation Options Screen

Step 2 Click Plan.

You see options to Create Plan and Create Add-On, as shown in the following screen.

You see a window with the plan you created, which has a Status of Private and a State of Not Configured, as shown in the following screen.

Figure 4-7 Plans Screen

Step 7 Click the name of the plan you just created.

You see the following screen, which displays assorted information about the plan.

Figure 4-8 Plan Detail Screen

Step 8 Under Plan services, click on the name of the plan you’re going to configure. In this example, we click Cisco DataCenter Network.

You see the following screen.

Figure 4-9 Configure Network Container Plan Screen

Step 9 Complete the various fields to create a network container:

Enter Plan Details about the container:

– Description—Enter a descriptive name for the container.

– Maximum Instances per Subscription—1-10

– Maximum Instances per Cloud—1-2500

– Cloud—Select the cloud service associated with the plan you are configuring.

Note The list of clouds in the drop-down menu is populated from the Cisco CNAP database. There is a service that updates this list every hour; hence if a new cloud is added to SCVMM, it can take up to one hour to show up in the Cisco CNAP plan creation wizard in the Admin Portal.

Specify Container information:

– Bring Your Own IP Space and Type—Not available in the current release. Zinc Container is preselected.

– Perimeter Edge Router—Type: On the drop-down menu, select the PE router you are utilizing for the WAN Gateway, either the Cisco ASR9000 or Cisco ASR1000.

– WAN Access: Specify the type of WAN Access, MPLS VPN, Site-to-Site VPN, Remote VPN, or Internet Access. MPLS VPN is preselected as it is the only option available in the current release.

– Tiers: Workload, DMZ, Value Added—Only Workload is available in the current release.

– Shared Services—Select the Shared Services you want to be available in the container plan. Shared Services are displayed only if you have configured them.

– High Availability: Perimeter Services and Load Balancer—High Availability for Load Balancer is not available in the current release.

– High Availability:—When configuring service details in a plan, you can select High Availability for Perimeter Services (Cisco CSR 1000V) and Load Balancer (Citrix NetScaler VPX), although in the current release, HA is not supported for Load Balancer; HA is only available for Perimeter Services:

If High Availability is not checked (non-HA mode), only one network service virtual machine instance is created of the Cisco CSR1000V or Citrix NetScaler VPX. The service is still highly available, but an underlying host or OS failure will cause a reboot of the network service virtual machine, interrupting service for seven to 10 minutes.

If High Availability is checked, two virtual machine instances are created. In this mode, the two network service virtual machines are clustered and have application-level high availability protocols that will quickly restore service when one of the network service virtual machines has an outage due to software crashes or underlying node failures. The outage time to detection and failover is typically in seconds.

IP Addresses are used by the Cisco NSO to communicate over the management interface to these virtual machine instances. Based on your HA selection for Perimeter Services, Cisco CNAP will allocate one or two IP addresses for Perimeter Services. For Load Balancer, Cisco CNAP will allocate only one IP address.

– CSR 1000V License Selection—First select the CSR Feature Set using the pull-down menu, then select the CSR Throughput Level using the pull-down menu. The options available on the CSR Throughput Level pull-down menu depend on what you selected for the CSR Feature Set.

BFD—Bidirectional Forwarding Detection, a network protocol used to detect faults between two forwarding devices connected by a link, is used to ensure that the Cisco CSR 1000V has reachability to specific points in the network. If BFD loses a specific path, traffic can be rerouted to the backup path. If BFD is not configured, a network outage may go unnoticed or extend the time it takes for traffic to re-converge.

Step 10 When you are finished, as shown for example in the following screen, at the bottom of the screen click Save.

Figure 4-10 Configure Network Container Plan Screen—Completed Example

You see a message at the bottom of the screen while the configuration is being saved, as shown in the following screen.